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To Jug Pigeons

Pigeons are boiled in a jug with butter, spices, wine, ketchup, lemon, anchovy, and herbs, then served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Jug Pigeons

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pigeons

  1. Wash and dry the pigeons with a cloth.

  2. Season the pigeons with beaten mace, white pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the pigeons in a jug and add the butter on top.

  4. Seal the jug tightly with a cloth to prevent steam from escaping.

Cook and make the gravy

  1. Set the jug in a kettle of boiling water and boil for 1.5 hours.

  2. Remove the pigeons and pour the gravy into a pan.

  3. Add wine, ketchup, lemon slice, chopped anchovy, and sweet herbs to the gravy.

  4. Boil the mixture briefly, then thicken it with butter rolled in flour.

Serve

  1. Arrange the pigeons in a dish and strain the gravy over them.

  2. Garnish with parsley and red cabbage.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
The main protein; slow steaming in a sealed jug keeps the meat tender and moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the gravy and enriching the cooking liquid.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour and butter form a roux-like paste that thickens the gravy when it is boiled.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth and umami to the gravy without tasting distinctly fishy.
Ketchup
Contributes sweetness, acidity and savoury depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Sealing the jug before steaming. A tight seal traps steam so the pigeons cook gently in their own juices and butter. If steam escapes, the liquid can evaporate and the birds may dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mace, wine, ketchup, lemon, anchovy, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mace, wine, ketchup, lemon, anchovy, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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